The state GOP refused to comment on the simmering controversy. Efforts to reach Husband also failed.

As The Guardian in the United Kingdom noted, the practice of shaving heads – an “ugly carnival” – goes back to Biblical times, when it was associated with shaming or mourning. In the book of Corinthians, for example, the Apostle Paul admonishes women’s head to be covered or “she might as well have her hair cut off.”

Writing for the Guardian, the English historian Antony Beevor said in Europe, the practice of punishing women by shaving their heads dates back to the dark ages, and in the Middle Ages, denuding a woman of what’s supposed to be her most seductive feature was commonly a punishment for adultery.

This mark of humiliation was revived in the 20th century – most infamously during World War II – but also during the Spanish civil war, he said.

In fact, Beevor offered a nuanced picture of the head shavings in France. He said many of the head-shavers were actually not members of the French resistance but also petty collaborators, who “sought to divert attention from their own lack of resistance credentials.”

He noted that many of the victims were prostitutes who had plied their trade with German soldiers and in some parts of occupied France, their conduct was considered apolitical and merely professional.

Others were teenagers who associated with the German soldiers out of boredom or bravado, Beevor said, adding, “Many victims were young mothers, whose husbands were in German prisoner-of-war camps. During the war, they often had no means of support, and their only hope of obtaining food for themselves and their children was to accept a liaison with a German soldier.”

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